Scientific Reporting and Writing

This 3-day 'Scientific Reporting and Writing' course will address various challenges of professional scientific reporting, writing and presenting. It includes a primer on scientific work in general and on giving critical feedback to writers and presenters. Participants are invited to submit and work on their own abstracts in preparation for the course using the online platform. They will receive personalized feedback and advice from fellow peers and course faculty. The course is characterized by interactive lectures, exercise and group work. Lecturers will provide an overview of general writing topics. Practical exercises and online platform activities will focus on specific issues including challenges for non-native speaker scientists. Finally, course faculty with experience as journal editors will give advice on submission procedures.

In the asynchronous online part of the course, starting 18th January 2021, participants will be provided with lecture videos and work on online exercises in preparation for the synchronous online part of the course, which will be held from 17 – 19 February 2021.
Overall the course covers the following topics:

• Writing in English language
• Principles of good writing
• The format of a scientific manuscript
• How to read a paper?
• From the research question to a manuscript
• Planning the writing, time management and self-organization
• The peer review process (journal guidelines, submitting a paper, writing a peer review)
• Giving, receiving and reacting to critical feedback in oral and written form
• Ethical issues in scientific publication (study design and ethics, authorship/conflict of interest, editorial decisions, plagiarism
• Working in science (including project planning and grant writing)